Open for debate

In Jeremiah 50:6, God calls Israel His people and “lost sheep.” The Messiah, spoken of throughout the Old Testament, was seen as the one who would gather these “lost sheep” (Ezekiel 34:23-24; Micah 5:4-5). When Jesus presented Himself as a shepherd to Israel, He was claiming to be the fulfillment of Messianic prophecy (Mark 6:34, 14:27; John 10:11-16; see also Hebrews 13:20; 1 Peter 5:4; and Revelation 7:17).

Jesus’ words show an awareness of Israel’s place in God’s plan of salvation. God revealed through Moses that the children of Israel were “a holy people to the LORD . . . chosen . . . a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6). It was through the Jews that God issued His Law, preserved His Word, and sent His Son. This is why, elsewhere, Jesus tells a Samaritan that “salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). In Matthew 15, when the Jewish Messiah says that He was sent to “the house of Israel,” He is simply connecting His presence with God’s purpose in Old Testament history. Christ was “born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law” (Galatians 4:4-5).

asep garut wrote: Hi 2Acts, thank you for your reply. You said: “Your quotes from the Quran are interesting but I am not sure why you are quoting them as I do not believe in the Quran.” Islamic teachings do not force people to become Muslims as in His word: “There is no compulsion in religion. Verily, the Right Path has become distinct from the wrong path.” (2:256) Therefore, anyone who does not believe in the Qur'an, will not be forced to believe. “..Say: “Are those who know equal to those who know not ?” It is only men of understanding who will remember (i.e. get a lesson from Allah’s verses) – (39:9) You said: “If you compare the modern Quran with the oldest manuscript you can see it is not accurate.” The differences between the modern Quran and the oldest manuscript are only in the provision of a reading sign only, while the composition of the letters, verses and surah are the same. It is made to make it easier for people to read it, whether it is read "Kasrah", "Fathah", or "Dhamah", etc. And if we have already known about the ordinance of writing and reading, it will know the purpose of every verse in the Qur'an. You said: “What proof do you have the Jews changed Gods message? Can you prove it ? and why should I trust Allah id he cannot be trusted to preserve his message by allowing Jews to change the message ? “   With the existence of two statements in the Bible, as below: 1.    "Jesus answered," I am sent only to the lost sheep of the people of Israel. " (Mathew 15:24) 2.     “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations”  (Mathew 28:19)   Doesn't that already show any difference?   While in the Qur'an there is a statement of God as follows:  “Do you (faithful believers) covet that they will believe in your religion in spite of the fact that a party of them (Jewish rabbis) used to hear the Word of Allah (the Torah), then they used to change it knowingly after they understood it ?“ (2:75)   And God is strongly opposed to those who make a lie to Allah by His word: “Then woe to those who write the Book with their own hands and they say, “This is from Allah,” to purchase with it a little price! Woe to them for what their hands have written and woe to them for that they earn thereby.” (2:79)

Al Masihi wrote: ..............

Sorry for the delayed reply.

The question is: How can Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) be both ‘wholly man’ and ‘wholly God’ at one and the same time?

Help me out with a little experiment:

Make a fist with your right hand. Now open that same hand as wide as you can. Repeat this process half a dozen times; and see if you can identify the principal ingredient that makes this process possible.

The principal ingredient is time. The process can happen only because each action occupies its own niche in time.

Sticking with your right hand, try making a fist and an open palm at the same time.

Can’t be done.

Welcome to the ‘law of non-contradiction’. This law states that a thing cannot be ‘A’ (in this case your fist) and ‘not-A’ (in this case your open palm) at one and the same time.

James N. Anderson and Greg Welty write:

‘(But) what exactly is the Law of Non-Contradiction about? What is its subject matter?   The simple answer here is that the Law of Non-Contradiction is a truth about truths. Specifically, it is the truth that no truth whatsoever can also be a falsehood….Anyone who insists that the Law of Non-Contradiction applies to truths about cars but not to truths about cats would rightly be considered confused.

‘In the standard terminology of possible worlds, we are observing here that the Law of Non-Contradiction is true not only in the actual world but also in every possible world. There is no possible world in which that logical law is false (or fails to be true in any other way).

‘The notion of non-contradiction lies at the core of our understanding of possibility.’ (‘The Lord of Non-Contradiction: An Argument for God from Logic).

The Persian philosopher, Avicenna, said: ‘Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned.’ (Metaphysics, I.8; commenting on Aristotle).

How can Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) be both ‘wholly man’ and ‘wholly God’ at one and the same time?

He can’t. And here’s why:

If we define ‘man’ as a member of the species homo-sapiens, with various physical and mental limitations, then we distinguish ‘man’ from ‘God’. If Yeshua is ‘wholly man’ then he cannot possibly be wholly not-man (God, after all is not man) at one and the same time and in the same relationship to what defines a man. If we insist that he is indeed both ‘man’ and ‘God’ – and if we preserve the integrity of the definitions of these terms – then we make him a logical contradiction.

The thing about logical contradictions is that they are never true. They are always false, because the real world never satisfies both a statement and its negation at the same time, simply by the meaning of negation. To believe in a logical contradiction is to believe a lie.

By now you may be thinking: ‘but (surely) with God all things are possible!’ (Matthew 19:26).

What you should really be thinking is: ‘All things that are possible are possible with God.’

This is quite a different matter.

C.S. Lewis writes:

‘(God’s) Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to His power. If you choose to say "God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it," you have not succeeded in saying anything about God.

‘Meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words "God can."… It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.’ (The Problem of Pain).

Read these words again, and very closely: ‘It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; NOT BECAUSE HIS POWER MEETS AN OBSTACLE, BUT BECAUSE NONSENSE REMAINS NONSENSE EVEN WHEN WE TALK IT ABOUT GOD.’

When Lewis says that God cannot ‘carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives’ he is referring to the law of non-contradiction. He is saying that God cannot do what is logically impossible; and in this he is supported by St Thomas Aquinas, who writes that God cannot create a man who is, at the same time, a donkey; for in the statement that a man is a donkey ‘the predicate is altogether incompatible with the subject.’ (cf. Summa Theologica: Part 1; Question 25; Article 3).

Ludwig Ott writes: ‘To God's Infinite Reality of Being there corresponds an (intensively) Infinite Power. This extends over the whole sphere of real and possible being (extensively infinite).   As God's power is identical with God's Essence, it cannot imply anything which contradicts the Essence and the Attributes of God. Thus God CANNOT CHANGE, cannot lie, can make nothing that has happened not to have happened (contrary to the teaching of St. Peter Damian), CANNOT REALISE anything which is contradictory in itself 2 Tim. 2, 13: He cannot deny himself.’ (‘Fundamental of Catholic Dogma’; page 47 - emphasis is mine).

Note: God cannot realise (i.e. bring into being) that which is contradictory in itself; for example, a man who is, at the same time, a donkey; or a man who is, at the same time, God.

Aquinas writes: ‘Whatever implies contradiction does not come within the scope of divine omnipotence, because it cannot have the aspect of possibility.’ (Summa Theologica: Part 1; Question 25; Article 3).

This means that there are certain ‘intrinsically impossible’ things that even an omnipotent God cannot do.   He cannot be finite and at the same time infinite; absolutely immutable and at the same time changeable; omnipotent and at the same time powerless.

To believe in a logical contradiction is to believe a lie. The puzzle is: why do Trinitarians do just that…why do they (do you) not see that doctrines associated with the ‘incarnation’ contain contradictions:

God is pure spirit; is not a compound; is not anything corporeal……against: Through the act of incarnation God became - and remains - corporeal; a compound of spirit and flesh.      

God is immutable……against: God became a man.

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are ‘one immensity’…….against: One of the three is finite.

Yeshua is fully God; against….Yeshua is fully man.

Yeshua is a man like us in every respect……against….Yeshua has two natures, in one divine person.

Why do Trinitarians accept such nonsense? The answer lies in George Orwell’s concept of ‘doublethink’:

‘(Doublethink is) the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies…. and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.’ (‘Nineteen Eighty-Four; part 2, chapter 9, page 220).

The doctrine of the incarnation is a lie that owes its very existence to ‘doublethink’. No matter how hard the Trinitarians push it; no matter how often they repeat it; a lie remains a lie.

DavidC wrote: ......there is nothing God cannot do. I believe this is accepted in Islam as well as Christianity. Human arguments simply will not stand.

Hello David.

Consider this verse:

‘It is Allāh who created seven heavens and a similar (number) of earths. His command descends throughout them. So you should realize that He has power over all things and that His knowledge encompasses everything.’ (Al-Talaq)

What follows is taken (verbatim) from the site ‘Islam Question and Answer’ - as part of a response to Question 87677: “An atheist saying “Can Allaah create a god like Himself?”.

It is worth mentioning that this site represents the ‘puritan’ wing of Islam. Its folk are by no means wishy-washy ‘moderates’ like me! Here you are:

‘That which is impossible does not exist, because it cannot exist, so it is nothing, even if the mind can imagine it. It is known that the mind can assume and imagine the impossible, the mind can imagine two opposites, such as something existing and not existing, at the same time.

‘The verse states that Allaah has power over “things” but that does not include things that are inherently impossible, because they are not things, rather they do not exist and they cannot be brought into existence.

‘Hence more than one of the scholars have stated that the power of Allaah has to do with that which is possible, for the reason that we have mentioned, which is that that which is non-existent and impossible is not a “thing”.

‘Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: As for Ahl al-Sunnah, in their view Allaah, may He be exalted, has power over all things, and everything that is possible is included in that. As for that which is inherently impossible, such as a thing both existing and being non-existent, there is no reality in it and its existence cannot be imagined, so it cannot be called a “thing” according to the consensus of the wise. This includes the idea of creating another like Himself, and so on. End quote from Manhaaj al-Sunnah (2/294).

‘Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allaah have mercy on him) said in Shifa’ al-‘Aleel (p. 374): Because that which is impossible is not a “thing”, so His Power has nothing to do with it. Allaah has power over all things and no possible thing is beyond His power. End quote.

‘And Allaah knows best.’

Very best regards.

PS: If 'Human arguments simply will not stand' they why are you here...arguing?